Paradise Stars
by wonderwoundedhearers
Summary: A-lister AU in which method actor Rumford Gold and rising star Belle French meet on the set of 'Paradiso,' a film adaptation of August Booth's best-selling novel of the same name. Can they translate their on-screen magic into their off-screen lives? Lang/Lem.
1. August's Prelude

**August's Prelude**

* * *

The grips and the cameramen are all in place, he can see, and there's a long pause when someone calls for silence on the set. August utilises that pause to take a long, slow breath and a sip of water.

He's where he wants to be after three years of trying to be a break-through best-selling author, then another year trying to land a movie contract, and now he's here on Oprah's Book Club. His sales will skyrocket. He'll have enough money to never worry about his finances ever again.

It's a dream come true, and he only wishes his father were here to see it.

Oprah turns in her seat from getting her mic readjusted by the A2 and smiles at him across the curved, glass desk. Her smile, synonymous with success, makes him smile too.

August relaxes into the high-backed cushioned seat and straightens his cream waistcoat and black jacket. He feels useless and prone out of leather, off of a motorbike or away from his dad's old typewriter. But the studio is warmer than he's used to on a chat show, and at least it's comfortable.

Only the best for America's First Lady of book recommendations, he thinks, looking over the peach-coloured set and glancing at the sepia-tone picture background panels. The screen beside him, behind the desk, flickers to life, and Oprah's Book Club logo spins slowly, rotating on its axis, and will continue to do so until it's time to take questions from the public.

He's been briefed about etiquette and all manner of other crap, but he's not worried about screwing up the live webcast. He has the most silver of tongues when he wants something this badly. His legs are aching today though, and he can feel his right knee twitching. He's sure he'll make it through just fine, but he's already stipulated before the interview not to shoot a low angle, so if he needs to stretch his legs he can.

It's all worth it, he tells himself. All this media and the whole circus surrounding him and his book is worth it. He's always wanted to be a successful writer, and now he is one. He just needs to get out of the mind-set of the travelling loner who goes where he wants to with his one-man band, and _into_ August Wayne Booth, _best-selling_ _author_.

The floor manager comes out from backstage – a place where August wouldn't mind finding her later, especially with all her flowing blonde hair and skin-tight jeans – and puts a finger to her pink lips, drawing all gazes and holding the silence before throwing up her other hand and signalling _five, four, three, two_–

Oprah gives a wide, warm, pearly-white smile towards the camera. "Hello, Book Clubbers! Welcome to our live worldwide Book Club event. We're coming to you live from Harpo Studios in Chicago. Hello to everyone on Oprah-dot-com and CNN-dot-com! Anderson Cooper, hello to you!"

"Hey, Oprah, how's it goin'?"

It's strange hearing the man in the earpiece the A2 gave him without seeing him in the studio or on any of the screens dotting the set.

"I can actually hear you, Anderson! We've had problems from you before," Oprah teases, glancing at August and coaxing an easy smile from him, before 'turning back' to the audience. "Anderson will be joining us in just a bit, but here with me is writer August Booth. He is the author of the most powerful story I have read in a very long time – _Paradiso_, our book club's selection. August has travelled all the way from Phuket in Thailand to join us tonight. So, welcome! Welcome, welcome, _welcome_."

August tries to ignore the cameras and the crew, like he's been told and trained to, and simply focus on the woman across from him in the red dress – who is taking his hand in hers to squeeze in greeting – and the people at home watching on their computers.

"Thank you," he tells her sincerely, returning her gesture. "I'm happy to be here."

Oprah smiles, letting his hand fall back to the glass desk top and turning back to the camera. "Well, throughout our webcast, we'll be taking your questions about this..._beautiful_ book, _Paradiso_. Our phone lines are now open and the number to call is on the screen. And, as you can see, you can e-mail us your questions too. The Book Club team will be reading all of your e-mails, and they might just call you at home. And for all of you Facebookers, you can post a comment or let me know what you wanna ask the author the most. What's your _burning question_? Before we get started, let's have a quick look at the story that makes up this brilliant book, _Paradiso_."

In his ear, he can hear Oprah's voice. The floor manager nods to the two of them, holding out her hand to indicate five minutes of VT time for the audience. August lets himself relax and gives the woman – Laura, was it? – a smile. She smiles back.

"_Paradiso_," he hears through the earpiece as he thinks about a late dinner and candlelight, "is a novel set in downtown Los Angeles. First-time author, August W. Booth, tells the story through the eyes of two people, John Tupelo and Gracie Shaw, masterfully capturing both the stigma and exclusion that immigrants can find in coming to America."

August wonders what visuals they're using in the video, but knows that the production designer and the show's producers are good at what they do. They'll make this interview the best he'll ever give.

"The book opens on Gracie," Oprah's recording continues, "who has moved from Australia to chase her dreams of being a writer but who has fallen on hard times. She moves into a half-way house called Paradiso Rooms, and it is there we meet the male protagonist, John Tupelo, who is a back-room shark hardened by years of being a social pariah. We take a journey with the unlikely couple, who fall through friendship, hardship and romance, and we see if paradise can truly be found _anywhere_."

The dull red light on the main camera flicks on and the floor manager gives a thumbs-up. Oprah picks up and holds aloft a copy of August's book, which he's already signed pre-emptively in case she wants to keep it.

"The reason I chose this book," she tells the audience, "is because I think that this story allows us to see America through a newcomer's eyes, to see how we appear to strangers, which is especially important since we, as a country, place so much importance on good _image_. This book will spread your heart wide open. As soon as I finished I wanted to track August down and ask him _so many_ questions!" She turns to him, laughing. "Do you remember that call?"

"Yes, I do." August chuckles himself, trying to appear approachable but also remembering how he'd put the phone down and had the urge to leap for the fucking ceiling.

"You were very happy!" Oprah reminds him, grinning.

"Of course, I had Oprah on the phone."

She laughs, putting her hand to her chest. "I mean, I've never been much of a fan of books set in L.A., or New York, or wherever – because there's such a big cliché over that – but, I mean, Anderson said he wasn't a fan of the same thing, and then he really enjoyed it. Didn't you?"

"Enjoyed it is putting it mildly," the guy's disembodied voice drawls. "It's one of those books that you pick up and start reading and just can't stop. You get sucked into it, and you see the commonality in these two people. You can walk in their shoes for a little bit. John's a man doing some terrible things, but you can also see that he's not such a terrible person. It really just got to me, and you can see all these issues that we have as a country, alienating people."

"Exactly." Oprah nods, turning back to August. "So, August, tell me – what made you decide to write this book in the first place?"

He's prepared for this question, to bring the past to the fore for _everyone _to hear.

"Well, I lived in Thailand for many years after my father died, when I was eighteen, trying to forget about him and all my troubles." August pushes back the memories of girls and booze and pain. "And it worked, for a little while. Phuket's a beautiful, _amazing _island full of pleasures, and the perfect place to lose oneself. But some weeks after I turned twenty-six, I was diagnosed with distal muscular dystrophy."

"Could you give us a little explanation?" Oprah asks, in that soft and interested way of hers that's won her so many hearts and awards.

He gives a short smile. "Of course. It's a type of degenerative disease that weakens the muscles of the body, mainly, in my case, in the legs. The doctors tell me I could live to a ripe old age, but the dystrophy is accelerating where it would usually only begin to show up in my late forties. I'm thirty-one."

She nods, letting that sink in for a moment, before asking, "And was it because of this that you decided to write the book?"

"I realised that it didn't matter where I was, my past would catch up with me." August gives a soft and almost-humourless laugh, looking her in the eye. "Even in _actual_ _paradise_, it wasn't _my_ paradise. I wanted to be healthy, to have my father back – so many things – but I realised that I had to find it in what I have. That's why I wrote the book, to tell people that paradise is what _they_ make of it – that it's not a store-bought, corporate run-off, greeting card kind of thing."

"And why _Paradiso_ for the title and the hotel? Italian, my sources tell me."

"For my father," he replies, sitting back and slowly stretching his right leg. "He was from Italy and we lived there for many years when I was younger. I always remember it being beautiful."

Oprah smiles. "Will you move back there?"

"I'm already in progress," he says, knowing this is the perfect opportunity for an extra plug. "Once the film is finished, I'm flying there and staying."

She throws her hands together, glancing at the camera. "Oh, yes! The movie! Anderson, I hear it's being shot down there in L.A., where you are. Care to enlighten us?"

"Yes," he says slowly, obviously getting the information through a feed. "It's going about that Rumfold Gold, cast as Tupelo, and Belle French, who's playing Gracie, flew in respectively last night and this morning for a meeting in Hollywood. Gold, what with his background and training, I'm sure will be able to pull off a stunning performance, but I'm not sure about French. She's new to Hollywood and a little green, I hear."

August almost laughs, thinking of the meeting he'd had with the director and producers when they were doing casting calls. Belle French had been perfect – a fireball with a demure outer-shell, just like Gracie – and with exactly the right background for the part.

"Anderson," August says, smiling at the camera. "I can only tell you I have the utmost faith in the casting director, but I also took time, personally, to see that the actors playing my characters are the very best for the part. I think Belle French will do very well. Fans of my book won't be disappointed."

"That's great news," Oprah adds, "because the book is so wonderful it deserves the best treatment Hollywood can offer. It's set to be out next March, isn't it?"

He grins at her help plugging the film that's even surer to be a box-office sensation now that she's spoken kindly about it. "That's right."

"Well, I look forward to seeing it," she says enthusiastically, as the floor manager points to the prompter. "And now we have Jocelyn from Boston on the line to ask August a question – don't you just love being able to _be_ in another person's living room? _Jocelyn_, hello..."

As he listens to the woman in his ear, gushing about the way he wrote the gratuitous sex scenes, he only half-watches her face on the screen, now in use, beside him. The rest of his attention drifts to the floor manager, who's turning to go back stage and is looking over her slender shoulder at him.

"Well, Jocelyn, I think it's incredibly important to show those aspects of a relationship, and _not_ just because they're a lot of fun."

There's laughing and the floor manger smirks, and, oh, he's _definitely_ got a date tonight.


	2. The Alley

**The Alley**

* * *

It's a beautiful morning over the backlot of Paramount Studios down on Melrose, and Belle French takes in the sun in the Blue Sky Tank.

She's on her back on a bright yellow surfboard, fingers trailing in the cool blue-tinted water beneath her, waiting for Frank – Frank Whale, the director – to call out to her that they're starting the waves.

Surfing – even _pretending_ to surf – is nostalgic for her, bringing back long days and nights filming south of Brisbane, down on the Gold Coast, in her first feature film, _Sand_.

Her father has always been near useless in the water, and it had been her childhood sweetheart who had taught her to enjoy swimming. Thanks to him she'd landed a few parts in _Baywatch_-esque TV shows back home, and it had all spiralled from there.

She works hard for her craft, demands little in return for her talent, and she asks for less money than a fair few actresses in the business. Overall, she's been doing well. She's relatively new to Hollywood, but it hasn't stopped her from taking it on.

When her agent had called in a while back to see if she wanted to go for the leading female role, she had been sure that she wasn't going to get it. She had gone up against concrete A-listers and drama-hardened starlets in auditions, all ready to fight it out for the part of Gracie Shaw, and the final call on casting had taken ages to come through.

But it had come all the same, and she still remembers picking up her cell in the bath to hear Ruby Lucas shrieking down the phone about '_Paradiso_' and '_goddamn Hollywood, baby_!'

It's the best thing in the world to have a friend in your agent.

Well, second best, and second only to starring as the lead female role in a film adaption of a worldwide best-seller with Rumford Gold as her co-star. She's still dazed by it, dazed by thinking that the man she watched in the cinema when she was younger will soon be _acting by her side_.

She tries not to let her thoughts linger too long on the love scenes that they'll eventually be filming in the future. Best not to get too ahead of herself.

"_Belle_!"

She nearly jolts off of the surfboard.

Belle turns her head, shielding her eyes from the hot Los Angeles sun, and sees Frank at the edge of the tank, eyebrows raised above black sunglasses and a mic at his thin lips.

Once he realises he's got her attention, he rolls his hand in the air for the waves to start. They come slowly at first, lapping at the edges of the board beneath her back, and then the water begins to move faster.

Belle does as the script commands, turning on her side in the thick black wetsuit she's wearing and sighing. She closes her eyes, trying to conjure up the feeling of the last time she was out on the open water back home.

It was so long ago, but she remembers how hot and how peaceful it was away from the main throng of the beach, the calm that had come over her when she'd reminded herself that she would be flying to the US the next day and that her career was looking like it could finally take off.

Hope for the future had sunk into her very bones, and she feels that now. She feels Gracie's determination, her drive to chase her dreams, and she feels like this is just the beginning of something so very new and exciting.

Belle opens her eyes, throws back her shoulder-length hair, and turns onto her belly, sliding up onto one knee and beginning to paddle. A substantial wave lifts up behind her and propels her forward, towards the large fan that's been set up from across the tank to provide a strong breeze off of the water.

She knows she's moved out of shot when Frank catches her eye and gives her a brief thumbs-up before turning back to the script supervisor at his side. The waves decrease after a few minutes, but she stays put, kneeling on the board, until told otherwise.

Frank turns back, microphone at his lips, after a moment's discussion with the shorter, blonder man at his side. "Okay, you can get on out. Have Blanchard dry you off and get you dressed and then make your way over to The Alley. We'll be doing that scene next, and then we'll break for lunch."

Belle slips off of the board, into the water, and drags it behind her with the tag around her wrist as she swims to the edge of the tank. One of the prop guys helps her out over the shallow ledge and takes the board off of her hands.

Mary-Margaret meets Belle at the lot entrance, waiting with a towel in her hands and a dimpled smile on her face sweet-featured face.

"It looked like fun out there," she says, throwing the towel over Belle's wet hair.

They only met a couple of hours ago, when Belle had had to get zipped up into her wetsuit and Mary-Margaret had introduced herself as the costume standby as she'd tugged the black neoprene up around Belle's bikini-clad hips.

She leads Belle towards the nearest wardrobe station where she's already set up Belle's next costume and has the make-up artist and hairdresser on standby. They fluff her golden hair into rough, dry curls and re-powder her face, before Mary-Margaret has Belle change out of the wetsuit and into a short grey dress with red tights and a plaid flannel shirt, unpinning the tag from it marked '_Gracie_ – _alley, night_.'

"You know where The Alley is?" Mary-Margaret asks Belle as she rolls down the cuffs of the shirt, smiling at Belle's sure nod. "Good. I've got to see to Gold."

Mary-Margaret speeds off in her little kitten heels and powder blue cardigan, swiping a costume off of the nearest rail as she goes. Belle catches a flash of black and a glint of gold, before her head is forcibly turned back to the brightly-lit mirror in front of her and the bespectacled make-up artist is asking her to pout so she can rouge Belle's lips.

When the torturers are done with her, Belle has the chance to look about a bit before turning up for her next scene.

The back lot at Paramount is more than impressive. She'd seen a little of it when she was picked up from her hotel earlier and driven in for the first day's shooting, but not like she's seeing it now, with people rushing to and fro and closed off sets where she can spy a familiar face or two.

The avenues are thrumming, and with the sun beating down and the cloudless sky above Belle can almost believe that she's walking through a city in some foreign country.

She receives a few glances as she meanders along, looking curiously through open stage doors and stepping out of the way for little buggies that scuttle along the sidewalks, carrying actors and crew to and fro.

A steel sign bolted to a tall building and pointing to the right announces that she's found The Alley. She turns, side-stepping a bearded man wielding a lighting bounce and growling under his breath, and looks down the stretch of set.

She's already seen it in the brochure and on the website, but it is impressive what they've managed to create with a spare bit of space and some talented designers.

The Alley is a popular place in the backlot, she knows, because it can be used come rain or shine and takes the audience to any city the director wants to take them to. This time, for _Paradiso_, it's L.A.

The ceiling is covered, darkened and lined with one long rain machine, and lights have been lit behind the odd frosted window on the facades and empty shells of the back-alley buildings.

Belle can see it now. Gracie, finding her back account's been emptied by her no-good father, drags herself and her single piece of luggage through the rain, looking for comfort and a place to stay for the night with the money in her pocket.

She's pulled from her musing by the same man with a bounce pushing past her and walking straight up to Frank, who's leaning against the post of a prop market stall that she knows they won't be using today. They have a bit of a verbal scuffle, but Frank sends him on his way, telling him he's grumpy and not to hurry back from lunch. The grip just grunts.

Frank, now sans Ray-Bans, spots Belle and calls her over. He looks her up and down with a half-smile.

"Good, you look like you've just gotten off of a sixteen-hour flight. Blanchard knows her trade," he says.

Belle raises an eyebrow. "I _did_ just get off of a sixteen-hour flight, two days ago. I'm still fighting the jet lag."

"Even better." Frank smiles with those perfectly straight teeth of his. "Now, you know your place, right? Do you need another look at the script?"

She shakes her head, smoothing out the skirt of the dress. "No. I've got it."

"Good. If you start having trouble, one of the A2s will get you an earpiece and I'll direct you from back here. We need to be quick, okay, Belle? _NCIS_ has this set booked next and I've heard they can be real bitches if they don't finish on time."

He leaves her by the market cart and Belle watches as the crew moves about her, adjusting the electrics so the buildings are the only sources of light, save a single streetlamp near the other end of the set. A harried-looking girl approaches Belle and pushes a weighted canvas duffle bag into her hand, before scurrying off again.

Frank shouts for the doors to be closed and then the set is consumed by true gloom, the crew disappearing into the shadows by the doors at either end of the set.

"_Water_!"

Belle hears the machine start up above her head like a boiler, thumping with the liquid pumping through it until, with a burst, it spews lukewarm water through its various pipes and grills, drenching the set until the building-backs are wet and the faux-sidewalk beneath her ankle boots is puddle-spotted as the rain pelts down.

Her hair immediately falls about her face and sticks to her cheeks, and the dress and shirt turn dark, clinging to her shape. She tries to think like Gracie as she sees plastic-smocked cameras rolling up the set, briefly parting the sheets of rain to get into position.

Belle thinks of her own father and his past debts, the pain of seeing him sell his watch and his cufflinks, and then tries to imagine what it might have felt like if he had turned to her possessions, _her_ money. Her breathing shortens, tears pricking the corners of her eyes, just as she hears a muffled, "_Action_!"

She grips the cutting strap of the duffel and stumbles as she's meant to, tripping forward and glancing back down the alley like she can see all the ghosts of her past waiting for her there.

She _is_ Gracie, trembling beneath the rain and panting as she forces herself onward, for help, for shelter, for _anything_ better than this. Her apartment's fallen through. She has no money and no contacts, no friends and no family, and all that she _does_ have is on her shoulder and in her shirt pocket.

She looks up, through the rain, past the garbage littering the street and the howls of laughter echoing from the open back door of a bar, and almost thinks she sees a glimmer of hope.

She moves onward, growing colder and wetter and more tired, and then a groan, sounding from the dark, puts fright deep in her belly. She could go missing and no one would know. She could be raped, murdered, brutalised beyond all recognition and all the rescue she might get would be the LAPD finding her body weeks later.

She wants to turn back, but there are ghosts there, and cowardice, and Gracie Shaw is nothing if not brave. So she soldiers on and tries to pass the tiny side-lane stemming off of the back alley without incident, but it is not to be.

Another groan echoes, louder, and she has half a thought to run when she hears flesh colliding with flesh and fist colliding with bone, and _oh, God_...

"Please...I'll p-pay you... Please... One more–"

"One more _what_?" She hears. "One more _day_?"

The voice, it's almost _jolly_, but there's bitterness there, and cruelty, and _malice_.

"You've had your time," the voice says, before there's the horrifying sound of bone breaking and a hoarse cry that she knows won't carry through the thick rain pelting down on them.

She wants to run, or shout for help, but nothing comes from her. She's weighted down, trapped by invisible hands, and it leaves her vulnerable, falling shakily against the cold wall at her back.

From the dark and the shadows and the gloom, she knows the man has spotted her and is watching, the man who owns the cold and gritty voice. She can feel his piercing gaze on her, and she can do nothing but look back, unseeing.

A hand, gloved and black, emerges from the darkness, and though she's terrified she'll soon see a gun and be staring down a barrel for her life, she manages not to do anything but watch as a single finger unfurls from the bloodied fist and points her onwards, down the alley.

_Run along_, it seems to tell her, _and keep your mouth shut_.

Just like that, her feet move. She trips, splashing water this way and that, but she keeps moving, onward, away from the hand and the pained cries and the certain agony of a cruel fate.

She moves at a ragged speed until something stops her, right near the mouth of the alley. There are shadows there, but they're kept at bay by bright red light.

She looks up, squinting through the rain, desperate and chilled, to see a neon sign – _Paradiso Rooms, Cheap Rent_ – and it's like it's calling her. She almost laughs, her bag falling down her arm to the crook of her elbow, the weight and something else entirely jolting her towards the shadowy, paint-peeled doors.

Suddenly, the rain stops, the last falling with a loud spatter to the ground, and a rumble from the machine above her head. The lights come up and a smiling crewmember pushes out through the doors at her fingertips to go about his business, pulling her from her dream-like world of pain and anguish and hope.

It steals her breath and Belle resolves not too fall too deeply into the role again, should the cold feeling in her chest pulse any more painfully. She's not properly trained to use the Method, and so she shouldn't try to go too deep – it's hard though, especially in this role, not to think of her own life.

The doors to The Alley roll open once more, and she knows Frank's got the shots he wants in one take. She's just stepping away from the hotel front, looking down the strip of the set to see Mary-Margaret on her way towards her with a large white towel, when she's knocked off course by a familiar gritty brogue.

"French," Rumford Gold greets, passing her by in a sharp suit and a long black overcoat.

He's peeling off the faux-bloodied gloves like his character would, Belle thinks, slowly and precisely and with an air of indifference. Rumford Gold is, after all, the master of method acting. She's heard before that he doesn't break character until a film's wrapped and he knows that there's nothing for him to do in the post-production process.

It's intimidating, working with him, especially when she had only just spoken to him yesterday, at the first production meeting between the principle cast and crew, and read lines together over a video call a month or so ago.

He glances at her as he goes by, dark brown eyes flicking over her face, and says, "You look tired."

She knows she looks a fright – her blonde hair dark and dripping, her clothes completely soaked, and her eye make-up water smudged – but it's just her character, just _acting_. He might be relatively dry, with hardly a dark collar-length hair out of place, but he is just playing Tupelo.

Rumford Gold wears his hair shaggy, finger-tousled, and never goes without a little bit of scruff about his jaw. Tupelo is clean-shaven, cologned to the nines, and wears faux-expensive suits. Gold is just an actor, who she's seen wearing hooded sweatshirts and sneakers in many a paparazzi shot. He is not intimidating, she realises – his _talent_ is.

But talent is something that Belle has too, and she's never been one to back down. She won't start now, not even with him.

Belle smiles. "You, too."

He lifts an eyebrow, and she sees a hint of a smirk at the corner of his mouth. "Oh?"

She nods. "Better have a nap during lunch. I think you need it."

Mary-Margaret interrupts then, throwing another towel over Belle's head and shaking it roughly, before letting it drop to her shoulders. Belle can feel her hair practically standing on end, even as some falls in her eyes, but she keeps the man's gaze.

Gold looks like he's trying not to laugh as he steps away and turns, letting another crewmember fuss with his costume as he leaves The Alley for lunch.

The bag over Belle's arm disappears, and she turns back from watching Gold go to see Mary-Margaret passing off the prop to a runner, who hurries it over to a cart marked '_Paradiso_.'

Mary-Margaret smiles at Belle as she squeezes the ends of her hair. "At least they're getting all the wet scenes out of the way today. Directors don't usually think about how you'll take a hit from it."

They talk as they return to the prime dressing rooms, walking all the way, before letting Belle change back into her own clothes for the lunch hour. She learns from Mary-Margaret that Frank is leaving after the next scene to okay some places in L.A. that the location scout has picked out for upcoming exterior shots, and a couple of rentable buildings that he needs to narrow down for the Paradiso Rooms' interiors.

"I'm guessing he wants something grittier," Belle says thickly, after swallowing a mouthful of the peanut butter sandwich she's brought with her on set. "Rather than building the interior rooms himself on one of the stages here."

Mary-Margaret shrugs. "I only know what my husband tells me. James is the location manager."

Belle can imagine Frank being fussy about the shots, especially since he's overseeing the locations himself. She knows he wants this film to be a gem, one that will set off his slightly spotty career.

Frank Whale isn't as madcap as some of the films he's directed and produced might make you think, but he does like taking risks. Belle thinks that _Paradiso_'s the film he's using to make sure the world knows just _what_ kind of filmmaker he sees himself as. He's using it to define himself, but then, so is she.

Mary-Margaret leaves Belle to her own devices with a beep from her cell, rushing off again in those kitten heels.

Belle sits back in the soft leather make-up chair. The wardrobe is empty, as are the dressing rooms, everyone having gone to lunch, and she only has her own reflection in the mirror to keep her company.

She _does_ look tired, she realises, and she knows it's because she wants this so much. She's stayed up late a lot, rehearsing her lines, and she's determined to make this a one-of-a-kind performance, something no other actress could conjure.

A performance straight from the soul.

She takes another bite of her homemade sandwich, before throwing it down on the counter in favour of taking another walk. She doesn't go far this time.

Outside the principle dressing rooms it is warm and sunny still, the blue sky a canvas to her thoughts and hopes of success, and she takes a seat on the dark brick wall lining the ramp down to the parking lot from the back door to the building.

She spots movement, even in her musings, and watches as a hand stretches from a silver car, parked in the middle of the relatively small lot, to gesture her over. She can't see inside, but there's no one else about and the masculine hand is insistent.

Belle thinks of black gloves and pointing fingers, before dismissing Gracie and slipping off of the wall. She approaches the car, and once she sees who is inside, she wonders how she could have thought it would be anyone else.

"French," Gold greets through the open passenger window, this time with a little more warmth. "I was just about to take my nap."

She smiles as the window drops lower under Gold's touch to the corresponding button in the car, and she folds her arms across the frame as she leans down to look at him through the window.

"Don't let me interrupt you," she tells him, and he lets out a breath of a laugh.

He's out of his costume too, wearing a crisp white shirt and a pair of ratty jeans. A pair of circular-framed sunglasses sits on his tousled head of hair.

"You know," he begins in that famous brogue of his, hands on the sculpted steering wheel of the car, "I heard you were an ingénue."

This, she realises, is why he was trying to throw her off earlier at The Alley.

Belle resists a smile. "And I heard you drove a Maserati, not a DB5."

"You know your cars," he surmises, interest in his dark eyes.

"I know my _films_," she corrects him, unable to stop her grin. "_Goldfinger_, 1964."

He tries to hide how impressed he is, she can see, but he's impressed nonetheless. She's confused by him, and he by her – it's like their characters interacting for the first time, and it gives her an idea.

"Do you want to run lines sometime?" Belle asks, and his eyes slip from hers.

They have rehearsals planned, she knows, for the bigger and more complex scenes, with the rest of the cast and a choreographer for the punch-up and bar brawl in chapter seven, but nothing for just the two of them. And as Gold's gaze lingers on the lunch in his lap – consisting of a bought sandwich, a Pepsi, and a smoke – she knows he doesn't want it any other way.

Belle nods, biting back the respect that had been building for him – _him_, top of the craft, and her, working her way up the ladder as best she knows how – and pats the warm, silver panel of the car door.

"Fair enough," she says, stepping back and straightening. "Have a nice nap."

She heads back inside for her forgotten sandwich and script. She doesn't see him look back up again.

* * *

It's not that he's offended by the idea of spending extra time with her, Rumford Gold decides as he takes a particularly thorough drag from the hand-rolled cigarette at his lips.

Belle French seems smart enough and he's intrigued by what he saw of her acting earlier. She's been competent so far in all of their interactions, and when he spoke to Booth, the writer had nothing to say but kind things about her.

It's just...pretty actresses usually get him in trouble, and he doesn't need that right now. No, he's trying to settle down, trying to actually _make _himself into more than Hollywood's go-to playboy, and he doesn't need to get distracted by Belle French, with her wet fucking dress and her blue eyes.

He's metaphorically burnt his little black book, and he's on the straight and narrow. He has dates with women who aren't involved in the film business whatsoever, and who are actually _surprised_ when a picture of them having dinner turns up in a magazine.

It's normal, and he's content with trying to be normal again, trying to be like he was before he became this image of ultimate acting perfection. Before _fame_. And it's hard, but it's worth it, just to keep his feet on solid ground.

It's why French intrigues him, because she didn't take his baiting earlier with the irritation he expected. She just smiled and threw it back, like they were just people, doing their jobs, talking smack for the hell of it.

"Fuck."

Gold rubs his eyebrow with the knuckle of his right thumb, before taking another solid drag. He likes her – _already_ – and it's only the first day of filming.

She had _immersed_ herself into Gracie's person, into her character and her feelings and her _soul_, and he'd seen it, while he was tucked down that little nook of an alley as he stood over that ham of an extra.

She has true talent, he realises, and it's why she hasn't treated him like royalty, why Booth personally okayed her for the part, and why she was picked in the first place out of a hundred more famous faces.

Because she can actually _be_ Gracie.

It's a breath of fresh air for him, in this business, but he won't reconsider her offer of running lines. Because temptation is something he hasn't yet mastered control over, and in the current mind-frame of John Tupelo, he doesn't want to.


	3. The Bungalow - Part 1

**The Bungalow - Part 1**

* * *

It's only the third week of filming but Belle feels like it's been a month.

She had read _Paradiso_ while she was still in Perth, staying with her dad in the house he refused to give up even though it was too big for him. She had thought then, as she'd nibbled her bookmark and read into the small hours, how emotional the book was, how August had written something she hadn't been able to put down or stop thinking about, but never had Belle thought that acting it would be so much more _consuming_.

There's hardly an angst-less moment in the book, and it's the same for the film, if not worse, because the screenwriter's had to fit twenty chapters into approximately two hours for the end result to be the same story.

It's draining to keep working so hard, fighting from going too deep into her work while giving it her all, and the only spare moments Gracie has from the incredibly emotional and powerful scenes Belle must act as her through are those spent with Tupelo.

It's symbolic, Belle knows, that in the shit-storm of Gracie's life she has these quiet and peaceful moments with the most unlikely person. The only problem Belle has with this is that Gold has pissed her off and the upcoming scenes are likely to put more stress on her.

How can she act like he's helping her weather the storm when _he is _the storm? Well, to her he's the storm. Gracie couldn't care less, because she's too wrapped up in figuring Tupelo out.

Unfortunately, Belle's doing the same with Gold. She's tried not to, tried to tell herself that his dismissal of running lines with her was for personal reasons rather than thinking himself above her, but it's difficult.

It's difficult because she's had to deal with this sort of prejudice and discrimination in the business before. Directors, producers, writers, casting agents – they all take one look at her filmography, her recommendations, and all they see is her streak of Australian soaps and sitcoms, and they rule her out as a serious choice.

To Belle, Gold's dismissal was ruling her out. To Belle, Gold said it straight to her face that she's not serious enough for him, not good enough for him to work with more intensely.

It puts fire behind her scenes for sure. There's a hard bite to how she delivers lines when someone's trying to fuck with Gracie, and there's an underlying menace – a _guard_ – against trying to hurt her.

Frank tells her he hasn't seen her working so well and to keep it up. Belle just drowns herself in the script and tries to think around her scheduled scenes with Gold, to prepare herself for being _soft_ with him, as Gracie should be, rather than cold.

But now it's the dreaded day itself – _Thursday _– and it's her first scene with Gold since The Alley.

They're going _into_ L.A. today, for their first look at the apartment building Frank's been crowing about, and then they'll be shooting the scene where Tupelo begins to bring Gracie out of her shell, rather than the dance they've been doing around each other when they've accidentally met in the building's lobby for the past few weeks.

Gracie's found a shitty job, grave-shift working at a twenty-four-hour diner, and Tupelo's been sniffing about, asking after her to the landlord of Paradiso Rooms, Granny. Gracie calls him out on it, and Tupelo responds in kind.

It's sure to be a good scene, one that Belle had loved when reading the book and has memorised from the script, but she has to hope that her professionalism will hold out long enough for Frank to get the shots he wants. She doesn't think cold-shouldering Gold so blatantly will go down well, and Belle is nothing if not a professional.

She steps out of the sparkling glass doors of The Beverly Hilton and glances up at the dark sky hanging over the tiered, splashing water feature. It's four-thirty in the morning, the air dulled with the promise of heat come sun-up, and Belle has her sunglasses sat readily on her head, tucked into her hair for later.

She's used to pre-dawn calls, and she's glad for that experience now she's working with an early-riser like Frank Whale. He's obsessed with getting the movie _just right_, and if he needs the right sunlight for some shots, then he needs it. There's no use arguing and Belle doesn't want to.

A hand catches her attention, reminding her of Gold's beckoning wave in the parking lot, and she has to brush away the memory when she sees it's her driver standing by the company car a few spaces down the driveway. Marco might be fairly young, as well as short and stocky, with cropped dark hair and only an inkling of a moustache, but the scar down his neck wards against messing with him, if the sharp black suit he wears isn't enough of a hint.

The American's not usually a talker, but he's all too keen to tell Belle what's wrong this morning as she takes herself and her Thermos of coffee across the forecourt to the dark blue Mercedes.

He opens the rear door for her and shuts it carefully after her, before climbing in the front and grousing as he starts the engine.

"So, this _asshole_–" Marco pauses here, glancing over his shoulder. "Sorry, Ma'am. This _guy_ drives in here last night, like a bat outta Hell, just when I was leaving, and now, look, he's parked in my spot. I swear to God..."

Belle glances where Marco gestures, at the place he usually parks and picks her up from, and sees a familiar sight.

She bites the side of her thumb as she looks out of the window, eyeing the silver DB5 as Marco drives by and peels out of the hotel's drive. Her smile, though, cannot be stifled.

For the blink of an eye, while Marco continues his story of how the driver had nearly scraped the company car, Belle thinks about telling him just who the Bond vehicle belongs to and sitting back to watch what happens, but she loses interest in that idea almost immediately.

Instead, she wonders how she never knew Gold was staying in the same hotel as her, and she continues to do so as Marco takes them deeper into L.A., passing through central and going for the more built-up downtown area.

Belle knows when they've arrived, because Marco turns away from a busy thoroughfare, cornering onto a smaller street which has wooden barricades across either end. The street is small, made for foot-traffic, not cars, and Marco parks up next to two loading vans on the right.

Frank is on her as soon as she steps out of the car. His Ray-Bans nowhere to be seen, he claps her on the shoulder from coming out of nowhere and smiles.

"Great! Right on time. I'll show you around the building we'll be using, and then when we've finished setting up, we'll get onto the scene," Franks says, rubbing his hands together before starting off down the street.

Belle thanks Marco, whom gives her a single nod of the head, and then follows the director down the small, sleepy street. There's only one lamp alight at one end, where the vans are parked, but it sheds enough light on the street.

The buildings are fairly old and weathered, more brick than concrete, and there are battered stoops and porches lining the sidewalk, without mats or ornaments. It all looks decidedly abandoned, with not a single light on in any house, and Belle quickens her step to catch up with Frank and sate her curiosity.

"How did you come by it?" Belle asks, shouldering her purse more firmly and cupping her Thermos as she looks about. "It seems kind of out of the way."

Frank gives her a genuine smile. "The locations manager's great. This way, we manage to get the exterior and interior shots. We can be clever about using The Alley filming, have it so it looks like this end of the street is more closed off with off-shooting alleys, and then use this street for exterior if we want to."

"Like another perspective." Belle nods, lips curling in a smile. "That's great."

He runs a hand through his hair, still smiling. "It is. And because this street was abandoned – I don't know, they had living condition issues – and the land was just recently purchased, it means we don't have to worry about residents throwing their piss-pots down on our heads for being too loud."

She laughs at the imagery, following Frank as he leads her to the very end building of the street. Standing taller than the rest of the houses, it juts out into the street at a slightly awkward angle, taking the corner for itself. The front doors stand ajar as a grip fiddles with tape and wire across the two front steps.

The building's definitely older than the rest of the street, with few windows and a yellowy facade, the cement plaster flaking and the brick underneath showing through.

"We can add the red hotel sign, too," Frank tells her, as they take the steps and walk through the doors. "The developer's going to build over the street, so he's pretty lenient, but I think he'll want to keep this building once the movie's out. It's going to get a lot of trade."

Belle's sure it will. Not only because _Paradiso_ is such a huge best-seller, but also because the building holds _charm_.

It's odd, because as Belle steps inside the foyer and looks around at the old sepia tiles and white, puffy, peeling wallpaper, she can _see it_. She can see Granny standing behind the stable door to her office, the one a crewmember's fixing the hinges of the door to, and she can see Tupelo, tapping his cheap cane on the battered banister down the stairs like a king grasping his sceptre.

An opaque bowl-like shade is bolted over the bulb in the ceiling, turning the light that shines through a deep, warm yellow. It makes Belle feel like she's in a movie, an old one, or looking at a newspaper clipping someone's kept until it's turned ochre.

"It's great," she tells Frank, more a hushed whisper than anything. "Really."

He nods, obviously pleased, and points up the stairs. "You go take a look around. I've gotta find out where Gold is. We're using all four floors, but your scenes will mainly be up on the third, okay?"

She barely has time to say anything, let alone tell him that Gold had been at The Beverly Hilton, because he's already gone and out of the door, looking left and right and calling for someone to get him a phone.

Belle takes the creaking stairs up to the second floor, finding a large living area and a separate room. The entire floor is completely gutted bar the bare light bulbs, and it looks as though the crew are using it to store equipment, because there are stacks of boxes and reels of wire, as well as bounces and what looks to be clothes and make-up supplies from Mary-Margaret's department.

The third floor, however, is completely different.

Belle takes the second staircase on the other side of the second floor, pressed into a corner and curling out of sight, and once she reaches the top she finds herself standing at the end of a hallway.

It's been cleaned recently – as well as sparsely repainted and decorated judging from the folded dust sheets piled in a corner – and the window at the end of the hall shows a view of the street, overlooking the front doors.

Belle glances at the four doors along the hall, all painted khaki green, and spies a cardboard box sitting outside the first room. Inside are purposefully weathered golden numbers for the doors, more than four of them, and a host of props sit in the corner, from dying plants to rusting fire extinguishers.

This floor, it seems, will be used for shooting _all_ the floors in Paradiso Rooms.

The stairs to the next floor curl away like the last set, tucked into the neighbouring corner, and Belle can imagine that the viewer will see the converted house as a perfect cheap and downscale apartment building.

It's clever and easy to use one set for different scenes – an old trick – and they've got the street to themselves. Belle decides she likes this set, very much, and has time to look inside each room, before her name is called from the floor below.

She takes one last look at the second room on the right, knowing from the book and script that it will be Gracie's and the opposite will be Tupelo's, and wonders how it will look as a finished piece when the set designers, decorators and dressers have cast their whirlwind trade across the building.

Belle sips at her coffee and takes the stairs back down to the second floor, belatedly realising as she takes her foot off of the last step that she's walked into a scene. A dramatic one.

Frank stands at the window across the room, rubbing his blonde eyebrow as he talks into a silver cell in strained tones. Gold sits on one of the tech department's black plastic crates, elbows on his knees and hands clasped beneath his chin. He's not wearing his costume like she is – in Gracie's short skirt, blouse, and sneakers from just coming off of her shift at the diner – and instead he looks much more like the Rumford Gold that the world knows, in ratty blue jeans and a grey t-shirt.

He looks up as she comes in, those slightly shadowed dark eyes half-skipping her bare legs to rest on her face, and he gives her a curious smile. It's one of those elusive ones, like it's not really there at all, and she wonders just _what_ has gone wrong.

Frank sighs loudly into his cell, drawing Belle's gaze, and she sees him turn his head from the window to give Gold a withering look.

"Yeah, I'll tell him. Thanks, Carol." He cuts the call and pockets the phone, turning and running a hand down his face.

Belle sips at her coffee, eyes bouncing between the two men.

Gold caves first. "Look, Whale–"

Frank holds up a hand to stop him. "It's my fault. You're the best goddamn actor in Hollywood, but you come with your own _carousel_ of baggage. I knew what I was getting into."

Gold sits back, straightening up and holding a placid expression, though Belle can see he's affronted.

"Yeah," he says, lacing his fingers in his lap. "Of course you did."

It's patently obvious Frank's not listening anymore. He paces for a minute, pinching the bridge of his nose, before loosing a sigh and turning towards the stairs.

"I'll send up Blanchard. We'll do this scene and then figure everything else out," he says, going down to the first floor, and Belle immediately looks to Gold.

He's practically scowling at Frank's disappearing back. Belle narrows her gaze at him.

"Do you know how it feels to be typecast, French?" Gold suddenly asks, surprising her, his eyes nowhere near her but still fixed firmly on the stairs. "Not in films, but in real life. Like they think they know who you are, and nothing you can do can change it."

She hardly has to think about it. "Yes."

He looks at her then, turns that piercing gaze on her and waits like he wants to hear more, but Belle's not inclined to share with him. He's the one holding out on her.

Gold nods like she said it aloud, just as footsteps sound on the stairs. Mary-Margaret climbs the summit in her kitten heels, a stool in hand, and heads straight for Belle.

"Frank wants to do the scene _ASAP_, so we'll have to make do." Mary-Margaret gives Belle a tired smile as she sets up the stool in front of a crate and directs her to sit down. "I'm the only one on set, so I'll have to do your make-up. Just...guys, it's five in the morning. Please, take it easy on me."

Gold gives her a tight smile. "Of course."

Belle smiles at her too, though she's sure it's in the same state as Gold's near-grimace. While Mary-Margaret unpacks the things she needs and complains about creases to Gold's delivered costume, the man himself stands and edges nearer, until he's leaning against the wall next to the crate that Belle sits at.

He crosses his arms and watches her. She raises her eyebrows, cradling her Thermos.

Gold breaks the impasse. "I...went out with a friend."

"A friend?"

He sighs and holds her steady gaze. "Fine. She was more than a friend. My date, in fact."

Belle is starting to draw conclusions about where this is leading to, but since he seems so wounded by assumptions she keeps quiet, at least for now.

"She...took photos of me."

Mary-Margaret continues fussing around them, but even Belle can see she's interested in Gold's story too.

Belle lifts an eyebrow at him.

"In bed," he elaborates, jaw clenched and eyes hard. "Naked."

For the smallest second, she feels like laughing. There's something bone-deep pleasant in having a little revenge, but then that cruel smugness dies and turns cold and she scolds herself for it.

"That's awful," Belle says sincerely, because _it is_. "I'm sorry. You're pursuing it, right?"

He blinks at her. "What?"

"With the police," she clarifies, before pouting for Mary-Margaret's proffered tube of lip gloss and puckering as directed. "Breach of privacy, or something."

Gold looks genuinely stumped and Belle is clueless as to why. Mary-Margaret fills Belle in as she powders her nose.

"With his reputation, all the public are going to see is that he's still up to his old tricks," she tells Belle. "Best just to bury it."

Belle glances over her shoulder at Gold. He scoffs something about his _reputation_ under his breath, before glancing at her and nodding at Mary-Margaret's summation.

"Blanchard's right, French. Like I said, I'm typecast." Gold smiles a horrible grin and gives a fanciful gesture with his hand. "I can play any character they want me to, give them _hours_ of entertainment, but I can never be the victim with them, because of who I used to be, or who they _think_ I am."

Belle frowns as Mary-Margaret finishes with her face and minimal make-up and goes about setting out Gold's costume on the crate in front of them. Tie, shirt, jacket, pants, cufflinks...

Belle watches the intricacies of his costume being laid out before her, lost in her thoughts, before Gold speaks again.

"Whale's got someone on it," he tells Belle, frowning at her for some inexplicable reason. "I doubt the pictures will make it to the press, and then this whole thing will blow over."

"But Frank's pissed _now_," she summates, eyes rising to his. "I get it."

"He expected something like this," Gold tells her, inching closer, and the sharp, fake pleasantness of his tone is not aimed at her. "Guess I'd be wasting my money if I bought a fucking sign."

Mary-Margaret suddenly slaps a pair of black leather gloves into his hand and breaks the tension between them, snapping Belle out of her daze and Gold out of his intense stare.

"Get dressed. You know what to do. No reason to make Frank any angrier."

She quick-steps off, down the stairs, and leaves them staring after her.

"She's got bite, that one," he says. "Wasted on her husband."

Belle blinks and looks up at him. "Are you _gossiping_?"

Gold mirrors her expression, before a smirk tugs at his mouth. "I don't _do_ gossip, French. I _am_ the gossip."

She rolls her eyes and picks through her purse on her lap, checking her phone and finding a text from Ruby. It's about Gold's misadventure. Word's gotten around already, although, apparently, the pictures haven't surfaced yet.

Belle replaces her phone and picks up her coffee, realising too late as she glances up that Gold has decided to get changed into his costume _in front _of her.

She'd like to say she's immune to his body, especially as a woman who prides herself on being about mind over matter and rising above, but it's not the case. There's a quiet strength to his slim build, a measure of authority to his height, and she watched that bath scene of his in _Bodies_ twelve times on the trot when she was eighteen. She'd near worn-out her cassette of that film.

So to see his figure so up-close and personal, as he peels his t-shirt over his head and stretches his arms in a _fascinating _way...well, it's boggling.

She's never realised how dusky his flat nipples are, or that he has hair in a near-perfect strip down his torso, or that the hair leads _all the way_ down.

Belle's staring up at him, she knows, but there's not much else to do except grip her Thermos and pray for strength. She's angry at him, she knows he's arrogant, and she needs to hold onto that.

It's not hard to keep that sting fresh in her mind, but it _is _hard to tear her eyes away from him as he slips on his silken burgundy shirt and makes to attack the fly of his jeans.

She looks away and near-scowls into her Thermos at a sudden and intrusive thought. This, she realises, is another test of his, and she won't lose this game.

Belle, feeling resolved, turns on the stool and watches him change without shame. She bites back everything but a cool, calm placidity. He's getting changed in front of her, it's his fault, and she can look if she likes.

He spots her frank gaze quick enough, the tug of a smile at his lips instantly disappearing, and she knows she was right. He'd been testing her, had been glorying in his win, but he'd underestimated her.

"I never realised you have a tattoo," Belle says with polite interest, forcing her finger to point and not to touch the tiny red rose imprinted on his hip.

He pauses for a moment, tie all haphazard about his neck, and looks down as if to see what she's talking about. She curbs her smile with a bite to her bottom lip.

"They ask me to cover it up in films," Gold replies, coming back to himself and buttoning the shirt. "Says it distracts."

Belle stands, finishing her coffee and feeling victorious at putting the slight stutter into his dexterous fingers as he fastens his clothes. She brushes off her costume, straightening it, before heading for the stairs. She glances back when she stands at the top step to see Gold watching her crookedly from behind his curtain of mussed hair.

"They say that about my tattoo as well," she tells him, smiling secretly, and leaves him to guess where it is.

* * *

"Cut! That was it. One minute – let me watch it back."

Belle sighs at Frank's call, slumping back against the banister of the first floor stairs with a heavy breath. The scene had been difficult, like unleashing all of her anger and doubt at Gold onto Tupelo, but she thinks it gave Gracie's character a little more flare and fire. Not that she needs it, though – Gracie's enough of a fireball without adding Belle's own backbone to her performance.

Gold is tousling his hair with those quick fingers of his, displacing Mary-Margaret's combing in two seconds flat. In the early-morning light coming through the doors and the window, Belle can see a slight flash of grey at Gold's temples, belying his years.

Not that he's getting on, but in Hollywood years he's probably double his actual age. Fortunately for Gold, the film business likes distinguished men. Unfortunately for Belle, she'll probably be out by the time she hits forty.

"Gold." Frank snaps his fingers at the actor from where he sits behind his screen across the room. "You're distracted. I can see it in your face."

Gold casts him a look that speaks volumes about what he thinks of Frank's statement, because _of course_ he's distracted. He could be the news of the month – the _year_ – if those pictures turn up, and _of course_ he's thinking about it.

Frank has only a thin-lipped smile in response. "Lucky for you, it lends Tupelo a bit of vulnerability at being caught out by Gracie."

Frank displaces his headphones around his neck and wraps up the wire, sparing Belle a genuine smile.

"Good work today, Belle," he tells her, standing from his director's stool and crossing the room. "Best I've seen yet."

She can't hide her smile at the praise, even if she does feel like the teacher's pet while Gold just stands beside her and silently watches on.

Frank suddenly digs his hand into his pocket and pulls out his ringing cell, immediately putting it to his ear. "Yeah?" A pause. "Right. Okay, thanks, Carol. Damage control? Okay, good."

He cuts the call and looks up to give Gold a strained smile. "The pictures are definitely dead, but the story isn't. We've got about an hour before everyone gets their hands on it and they come looking to get pap shots."

Gold swears under his breath and turns his head away. Belle looks to Frank.

"What are we doing then?" She asks as Frank absently gestures for an assistant to come forward.

"I want you two out of here." Frank sighs. "This place will be crawling soon enough. Go back to your hotels, wait for someone to call, and then we'll see what the situation is. We can do some exteriors until then."

The assistant at Frank's side hands Belle her purse and Gold his folded street clothes. It's obvious when Frank says the place will be crawling soon enough, he means _now_.

She's about to head out of the double doors, Gold just behind her, when Frank calls out again, halting her steps.

"Wait, I have a better idea!" She turns to see him gesturing between the two of them. "Run lines together for the next scene. And, Belle? Keep him out of trouble."

With that, he turns away to stalk off and mutter with the script supervisor, leaving Belle staring after him.

She glances at Gold. He's _smiling_.

"Look who's been demoted to babysitter," he drawls, and her irritation _sparks_.

"I _offered_ to run lines with you and _you_ declined." Belle pushed ahead of him out of the doors, roughly pushing her sunglasses down onto her face to hide her scowl in the fresh sunlight. "Don't blame me now Frank's forcing you."

She spies Marco off at the end of the street as she silently fumes, but she doesn't get very far before Gold's lilting brogue stops her in her tracks.

"I really got under your skin with that, didn't I?" Gold asks, and she turns to see his brow is creased but he's smiling as he steps towards her.

Belle opens her mouth to deny it but all that comes out is a huff of air, pure exasperation. So, instead, she decides on the truth.

"Yes."

He hitches an eyebrow. "Well. We're even, then."

She just mouths at him.

They're not even, not by a long shot, and what does that even _mean_? He's just looking at her like she should know and it is _infuriating_.

Instead of hashing this out with all the assembled crew watching and hanging off of their every word as they carry set kit to and fro, Belle simply turns and heads for the waiting car.

Gold, she knows, will follow her.

* * *

It's just his luck, Gold thinks, that Whale would give him a babysitter, and not just any babysitter, but the one he's been stuck on for two weeks.

He'd gotten under her skin with the whole running lines thing, had he? Well, she's done one better and gotten under his skin by doing _nothing_.

He follows her along the sunlit, abandoned street, tucking his clothes under his arm and watching as she heads towards a blue Mercedes. His lips tilt with a smirk.

"French!"

Belle stops in her tracks, blonde hair shining as it shifts in a sudden breeze, and she sets her shoulders. She turns, mouth in a straight line, and lifts an eyebrow at him from behind her wide sunglasses in question.

He ignores how distractingly pink her bare knees are – and how long her legs look in that fucking skirt – and points to his silver Aston haphazardly parked to the left of the barriers closing off the end of the street.

"Hop in."


	4. The Bungalow - Part 2

**The Bungalow – Part 2**

* * *

Speeding west on Sunset Boulevard, Gold allows himself a moment to look at Belle French in the passenger seat next to him. Idly stroking the grey leather upholstering, she leans against the car door and watches the other vehicles go by.

She's not fuming any more – at least from what he can tell – and while her spirit is something of an attractant to him, he likes her easygoingness just as much. She's cooling off, and it's given him time to resolve not to push her buttons so hard in the future.

It's fun of course, teasing her out to parry barbs, but Gold thinks he might've struck too hard at something soft by denying her professionally.

Belle French doesn't seem like the type to take overt insults to her person too seriously, or to her performance, but there's a vulnerability, to do with her credibility in her career, that he had struck home on, and he's sorry for it.

Gold knows the highs and lows of fame as well as any other working actor, and he knows the price that has to be paid for putting your entire _person_ out there for other people to criticise and to find fault with.

Despite his disillusionment with the weight people put on his word and his name, he knows that he can still wound with it. He can be intimidating, he knows, and before French's offer he has always worked closely with his co-stars and rewarded their bravery for treating him just like the human being he is with anything they wanted from him professionally. He'd forgotten that with French, had been twisted by his personal wants, and he'd not thought about her.

Just because she is intriguing and attractive and wordy, it doesn't mean he has to punish _her_ for liking those things about her. He has his issues and he needs to deal with them, not alienate her into thinking she's not good enough a co-star for him.

Being an unintentional arsehole is a life-long habit, picked up from his father – who was, to be perfectly honest, more of an _intentional_ bastard than an unintentional one – and the legend's only grown with age, preceding him wherever he goes.

It doesn't matter if he's at a charity fundraiser or the bank, he has this whole...fucking _shroud_ of doubt surrounding his character, battering him from all sides like he's a terrible person but, _damn_, does he make some good movies.

Like he'd told French, he is who they want him to be while the camera's rolling and after that they don't give a shit, because he's Rumford Gold and his name is synonymous with all the worst aspects of fame and fortune.

Gold glances at her again, the woman next to him, and finds she's smiling at the cigarette paper-filled glove compartment in the door.

"I'm disappointed you don't have a phone in here, like in the movie," French tells him in that genuine way of hers, leaving him a little bit bemused as to what she's actually fishing for.

Or is she not fishing at all?

He's used to one sentence hiding another, one coy glance meaning a whole fucking range of different things, but he's not much used to plain honesty.

If there's one thing his more recent streak of dating 'normal' women has taught him, it is that it's not the career or fame that dictates what a person is like. People are who they are, despite what hope you might hold out for them, and Belle French, he thinks, is honest, despite the glamour of her chosen career and the cut-throat nature of the business.

It hasn't hardened her, hasn't turned her into the type he's most accustomed to, and he's slowly learning that 'normal' doesn't mean a bloody thing anymore.

The recent women he's dated, they were, by all standards, normal, but he'd still come across Charlotte, the redhead he'd first met on a late-night run to Starbucks, who had decided to take those pictures of him and get what she could for them.

Did his _fame_ make her do it? Or was it always in her, this greedy need and disrespect?

Gold's at a...tender time, for want of a better phrase, and despite what French might think about him, she's the best person he could be around right now.

She won't let him get away with anything, and despite the temptation she presents, she's good company.

He realises too late, however, that he hasn't replied to her quip, and now she's watching him from behind those sunglasses of hers, face unreadable in his peripheral.

Gold gives her a smile, keeping his eyes on the road. "The phone and the sonar screen were optional extras."

He can tell his grin falls short, because she just sits there and watches him for another moment.

"You know," she says eventually, sounding like he's pulling the words from her. "We can just go back to our separate rooms, tell Frank we rehearsed and forget about it."

Gold taps his thumb on the wheel, biting back the urge to tell her yes, that's exactly what he wants to do, because the enigma of _her_ torments him. But he doesn't. He presses an easier and wholly more familiar smile onto his face and treats her like his _co-star_.

"No, French. We'll run these lines, and we'll do it until Gracie and John are satisfied. Alright?"

She takes a long time to give him a nod, and he thinks he sees a tiny smile from the corner of his eye, too. Her returned good humour relaxes him.

"I don't know why you didn't take Wilshire," she says after a quiet moment, simply sounding curious. "Even I know it would've been faster."

He frowns, indicating right as they come up on the turning for The Beverly Hills Hotel entrance. "But then we would've had to turn around."

Belle sits forward. "You're turning?"

Feeling completely lost, Gold waits for a car to pass and carries on, turning into the palm tree-lined and red-marked drive of the hotel. Belle pushes up her sunglasses to sit on her head and eyes the dark green entrance sign.

"But I thought..." She turns to him, forehead creased. "You don't stay at the Hilton, with me?"

"No." He shakes his head, and then realisation sets in. "You saw me there?"

"The car," she clarifies, patting the door as Gold lines up behind the rest of the short queue waiting to get to the hotel doors or the car park around the side. "Marco, my driver – he said you nearly hit him on the way in."

Gold swallows, neck heating with shame, and vaguely remembers Charlotte putting her red lips to his ear with a lusty whisper when he approached the Hilton. He's suddenly sure that his distraction led to more than one near-collision on the way to the hotel, and he has to hold back the flood of self-loathing and disgust he feels.

He's fucking _pitiful_.

"No," Gold tells Belle, clearing his throat. "I...uh, booked a room there last night."

Her pink lips shape a silent '_oh,_' before she says, "I was wondering how I hadn't seen you there before."

They manage to get past the queue of new arrivals and departures at the front doors, before heading to his parking spot, across the lot.

"I thought you were here too, to be honest," Gold said, indicating and pulling into the space. "You could be, you know."

He cuts the engine and puts the handbrake up. He glances at her once he's done to find that she's shrugging in answer to his statement.

"I like the Hilton. It has charm, and I can make my own lunch every morning without the management getting pissy."

Gold says nothing to that. He just follows French's lead when she opens the door and gets out of the car. He taps the windows to make sure they're all up, locks the car, and then leads his co-star over to the front doors of the hotel.

_Co-star, co-star, co-star..._ Why is it so hard for him to reconcile this? It's not because she's not good enough, but it's..._something_.

A concierge greets them there, under the striped canopy roof, while his other counterparts go about overseeing the new arrivals and the valet parking service. He surreptitiously brushes off his beige trousers and gives them a wide smile, welcoming them to the hotel.

Gold gives him a nod, but French is more generous and gifts him with a slow, curling smile, turning the poor boy into a stuttering wreck.

They pass him by as he tries to maintain his cool, and Gold can't help the smirk that crosses his face. He knows now, at least, that he's not the only one affected by French and her easy smiles.

She doesn't even seem to notice the little diversion she's made for the lad as they enter the hotel's lobby through the main doors.

They collect his key from the front desk, the smiling clerk welcoming him back to the "_Pink Palace_," before heading out through to the courtyard.

French looks about at the green palms and their fluttering fronds, the freshly cut grass and the pink pathways intersecting it, before hitching a quick step to keep up with Gold as he leads her towards his bungalow.

"You know," she says, eyeing the hidden stone fountain in the hedge to the left and the row of fuchsia flowers lining the path on the right. "I heard that when Howard Hughes stayed here, he got someone to hide sandwiches in the garden for him."

Gold blinks, hands in the pockets of Tupelo's suit as he glances at French. "Why would he do that?"

"Because he got hungry in the middle of the night." She smiles, keeping pace. "Haven't you ever asked for anything weird?"

He thinks about it for a moment, as they approach the secluded brick walk towards the presidential bungalow, and he thinks about it seriously.

"I don't know." Gold rubs the side of his thumb along his jaw, a smile burgeoning across his face. "I asked for a tin of sardines on location in a remote part of Russia once. You wouldn't believe how quickly I got them." He looks to her as he spies the bungalow's green security gate and the door beyond. "What about you?"

"Me?" She squints in thought, following as he precedes her. "I think the strangest thing I ever asked for was...a pepperoni pizza at about...three in the morning? But there was beer involved that night, so..."

Gold smirks, pulling the keys from his pocket and opening the gate. "You can't be held accountable for your actions?"

"More like taste." She scrunches her nose. "That hotel couldn't make a good pizza for love nor money."

He thinks about that as he opens the bungalow door, thinks about French not being French and just being...normal. He thinks about her ordering a terrible pizza in the wee hours because she's too drunk to know any better, thinks about her getting drunk in the first place, and he wonders what that's like for her, whether it's a release or just a regular day.

Gold realises he doesn't really know anything about her.

But he watches as he shuts the door behind them and she looks about, peering down the gallery into the living room as she takes off her shoes at the front door, before stepping into the Great Room, with its dining table for ten, its grand fireplace, its sofas and expensive floors.

She bites her bottom lip as she glances at the pool outside of the French doors to the right. Gold rubs his thumb across the fob of his keys, unsure what to say in the face of her wide-eyed look.

"There's a lift, too," suddenly springs from his mouth. "An elevator. It's on the other side of the bungalow, for private access."

For a man that tries not to mince his words, he's doing a fine fucking job of it now.

But then French seems just as surprised by her words too when she says, "You should have brought your date here."

There's a quiet moment – a moment remembrance for him of typing his number into Charlotte's mobile phone while she slept only to see the photos of him and the failed messages she'd tried to send a couple of hours previous – and then French is shaking her head of blonde hair, looking apologetic.

"But I guess that would have been stupid," she tells him, putting her handbag down on the dining table next to the fruit bowl.

"It's my home for the next few months." He puts the keys down on the table. "Best not to invite more trouble."

She smiles at that, a dimple appearing in her cheek. "You don't think I'm trouble?"

He laughs, even as he thinks to himself that, yes, she is trouble, and, yes, he's going to regret working so closely with her, if not for the temptation she represents for him then the opportunity she presents to the press to make something of the two of them that they're not.

Best just to let this blow over and see French around, rather than make more problems for himself that he can't deal with. Best to just be professional and let her pass by, rather than make the mistake of not doing so, like he's done before.

Maybe it's because he enjoys his work so much, or maybe it's because he's met some truly gifted actors and actresses that he likes getting involved with them, meeting them or keeping their numbers. Maybe it's because he's weak that he hasn't been able to turn down a pretty woman with a quick smile yet, which gives him this reputation and this string of failed relationships.

But he _knows_ it's because he's stupid that he gets sucked in. He trusts, and they lie. Nothing is what it seems and sometimes, when he's not immersed in a role or holed up in his house back in the highlands, he wonders if it ever will be.

For now, though, there's French, and her fascination with the remote for the fire.

He smirks, behind his fingers, and resists a laugh as she presses button after button, going to her side and looking down at the device.

"Trying to blow me up before my reputation is tarnished?" Gold asks, and French doesn't bother to glance at him as she makes the flames leap higher.

"I think we're a little past that point," she mutters, eyebrows matching the movement of the fire as it rises and falls. "This is kind of neat."

She drops the remote on the couch, before moving to the French doors and eyeing up the blue rippling water of the crystal-clear swimming pool. He puts the control back in its rightful place on the side-table, absently wondering if he's really so neat and if she leaves things lying about in her hotel room, before running his fingers through his hair.

The cufflinks of Tupelo's shirt catch his eye and he suddenly feels the need to change, to be comfortable and to just be running lines with another actor.

"I'll be back in a minute. Feel free to amuse yourself," Gold tells French, before hastily adding, "Anything that doesn't involve fire."

She laughs but doesn't turn around, and he turns his back on her to stalk to the master bedroom across the foyer. Gold shuts the door behind him and proceeds to get changed, folding his costume and putting it on the trunk at the end of the king-sized bed.

He washes his face of make-up in the sink of the en suite bathroom, eyeing the dark marks under his eyes, before getting into some soft jeans and a shirt in the too-big walk-in closet. He rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and sighs, before running his fingers through his hair and across his scalp.

Before he leaves to join French again, he takes a look about the bright sunlit rooms like she might, like a stranger would.

The bungalow's too big for just him, he knows, but the security is why he insisted on having the place, along with the privacy the hotel offers. Privacy, not for clandestine meetings or secret love affairs like some other residents, but for his ordinary life.

He ignores the sobering thought, or at least tries to while he retraces his steps back to the Great Room and remembers what it first felt like to be told he had talent. It grounds him, makes him remember the times he went hungry and that his personal sacrifices are few in comparison to other people in the world.

Gold finds French where he left her, except she's not at the windows anymore and is sat in the corner of the sofa, a thick and white-paged script in her lap.

Even from the door Gold can see that her lines are neatly highlighted in bright green, and that none of the paper is torn or battered, like his copies. He raises an eyebrow as he makes his presence known, joining French in the fashion-over-comfort armchair across from her.

She glances up, a challenge in her expression. "Ready to finally do this?"

He resists rolling his eyes at her, even playfully, and reaches for a copy of the script that he keeps on top of the stone mantle of the fireplace.

"Ready."

They rehearse lines, with Gold following French's lead as she goes through some scenes and tries out different variations of emphasis on certain words, and occasionally he gives her his opinion, but apart from that he watches her.

Gold can see Belle French for who she is as an actress, even if she stumps him a bit altogether, and he can see her passion and her capability clear as day as she takes on the mask of Gracie and tells Tupelo that she loves him despite everything.

He's quietly impressed with the way she clearly pauses to think before she launches into her character. She's not just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks, unlike some actors, and it's refreshing that she's careful about her craft, considerate of the knife she wields and the cutting out of the persona she must portray.

But there's _one_ thing that bothers Gold.

While French is enthusiastic and obviously very in touch with her character, the way she holds the pages of the script in her hands is very telling about her method.

To Gold, there's something wrong about the way she carefully turns each page, the way she slides her fingers down the paper as if it's precious, and the way she keeps the script firmly in her lap, taking care not to bend it.

Belle French, Gold thinks, holds her script like it's the Bible – the be all and end all – and it..._bothers _him.

He stops her as she makes her way beautifully through a monologue. "French?"

She glances up, blue eyes a little glazed with a far-off look. "Hm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

She nods, and Gold watches as she slides her hand carefully between the pages of her script to keep her place. He rubs the knuckle of his thumb along his eyebrow, frowning as he looks down at his own script. He's holding it by the bottom of the pages, folded and bent and coffee-marked, and it solidifies this sudden idea in his mind that he can actually give her some advice.

He looks up again, shifting forward in his chair to perch on the edge, his forearms resting on his knees. He plays with the bent corner of the page they're on as he tries to put his thoughts into words. He decides to start with a question.

"Have you gone to Whale with anything yet?" Gold asks curiously. "You know, like an odd word, or a phrase that doesn't sound like Gracie to you?"

French tilts her head like she can't quite understand what he's getting at, what he's _hinting_, but she answers him all the same.

"No." She frowns, sitting forward a little more, mimicking him. "Have you?"

Gold gives her a sure nod. "Ten times, at least. Tupelo's complex. He can't be captured in clichés."

She doesn't seem to struggle with what he's saying – so that's something – only that she doesn't seem to agree with his actions entirely.

French shrugs helplessly. "If you think your lines needed changing then I'm sure they did, but mine are alright."

"But that's the _point_," he stresses, his voice suddenly passionate. "They can't just be alright. You need to feel that you're reading your character off of a page, that they could have written those very words, that you can _feel_ them in the writing." He raises an eyebrow at her nod and expression of agreement. "There's _nothing_ you want to change?"

And because she's Belle French, she doesn't just brush him off. She thinks about it, and very seriously too, if the pearly teeth in her lower lip are any indication.

She looks at him after a moment, squinting slightly as if bracing for something. "_Maybe_."

He doesn't know what she's expecting from him, but he gives her a smile.

"That's good," Gold says, nodding. "That's really good."

Eyebrows meeting her hairline, French asks, "Really? But...the script's the _script. _I mean, occasionally there's something really stupid or a mistake, but...August _okayed_ this version. He _created_ the characters."

Gold runs his hand through his hair. "That's all well and good, French, but he just observed them, writing down what he _saw_. We _are_ them, and there's no one more qualified than we are to say whether something is right from them or not."

She taps her fingertips against her bare right knee, pursing her lips against a smile. "You're right."

He sits back in the armchair – not gleeful, nor smug, but _content_ to have actually _helped_ – and he feels satisfied that, actually, this whole thing might go well after all.

But then she throws him again, with that sudden easy smile of hers and that open expression, as she sits further forward and lays her script to the side, looking excited.

"There's definitely one thing I'd like to talk to Frank about," she tells him quickly, as if the words are coming faster than she can verbalise them. "In the second act, when Tupelo's blown Gracie out and she's confronted him after getting drunk at the bar, she grabs him and kisses him at his door."

Gold swallows as French stands, taking to her bare feet and pacing as she gestures.

"She's so _violent_," French stresses, shaking her hands. "She's just so angry and _embarrassed_, but she's also...disappointed. It's not like she wants to hurt him, like it is in the script, but more like she wants to...show him what he's missing, show him that he doesn't need to be this..._aloof_ man with her. He can be the prick, he can be the bastard, but she doesn't need him to try to prove it to her because she knows that's not who he really is."

And then French walks towards Gold suddenly, cornering him in his chair before kneeling in front of him.

There are a thousand things he could say at this moment – and a thousand more he shouldn't – but all that comes to mind is the stupidest question he can ask.

"What should it be like?" He voices, his throat ever so slightly dry.

French shifts on her knees, blue eyes narrowed in thought, before she reaches up to grasp his knees. He almost fucking jolts in the chair at the touch, her grip so solid and firm and so freely given, and she's just getting into the swing of things, being swept away, but he's fighting himself and the itch to really give himself over to this, because nothing good can come of that.

French looks up at him, all flushed cheeks and sudden seriousness, and he knows that she is centred, that she has found something important to her character, and if she needs help to act this out then so be it, but..._God_, she's taking his face in her hands and bringing her mouth to his, so close he can feel the warmth of her breath on his dry lips.

Her eyes flick to and fro, back and forth from each of his. "It should be like..."

Her voice is near a whisper, but not quite. Her fingertips slide into his hair, pushing it away from his face.

"It should be like this," she says breathily, holding him close even though it doesn't feel like she's _truly_ touching him. "Quiet, with the storm raging underneath, and then when she kisses him...it's slow, _tantalising_, making him _want_ to give her more than he does everyone else. And then when they get to the bed...it's like they've already had their reconciliation."

There's a breathless moment where he thinks she might act it out with him now, where she's so close to actually kissing him that the not-kissing _hurts_. She draws out the suspense like a fucking puppeteer, her lashes low and her eyes intense, and then she's moving back, letting go, standing up and_ smiling_.

She thanks him, tells him she'll talk to Whale and see what they can do, but he's rooted in the leather and wood he sits in, disturbed beyond belief that his face actually heats and itches where she's touched it.

And then he realises why he finds it hard to think of her as just his co-star, because, as a term, it isn't _enough_. It _diminishes_ her.

Rumford Gold watches Belle French evolve as an actress right before his eyes as she takes a pen to her script, and he knows that she will do wonderful things with her skill, but he's not sure whether to be pleased that he'll see it in action or _worried_.

For now, he needs a fucking cigarette.

* * *

Belle watches as clouds cross the sky outside of the bungalow's lavish sitting room, the cumulus massing into a grey ceiling that Gold furiously smokes beneath.

He's pacing on the far side of the pool, his free hand fisted in his jeans pocket, and Belle wonders if the photo scandal has really put more pressure on him than he has let on.

She would wonder more about him, but she's a little preoccupied herself. She's taking the time he's out of the room and earshot to cool herself off.

She had _grabbed_ Rumford Gold. By the _face_.

It had been in the heat of the moment, with Gracie's determination and desperation to draw the true Tupelo out, but still...the aftermath of staring into Gold's dark eyes had felt decidedly _not_ like acting her attraction to his character. Not one bit.

Belle fidgets in her corner seat of the couch, pressing her fingertips against her temples to help her decipher her muddled thoughts.

No, it had felt decidedly _good_ to be holding Gold by the face, to have control over his wayward mouth and whether or not it touched hers, and that's..._scary_.

She had liked it. Belle had liked pressing herself between his knees and pulling him close, speaking to him in that bedroom voice and imagining the beautiful cinematography of the resultant sex scene. It is still vivid in her mind, this tasteful depiction of Gracie and Tupelo making love, instead of the scripted version where she literally fucks him until he can't form a coherent sentence, until he can't push her or run away anymore.

Gracie is tough, but with Tupelo she finds this unerringly soft side of herself – not like the learned love she had given to her father, but more like...an instinctual thing, a bond she can't deny and doesn't want Tupelo to try to.

Belle isn't sure whether the hammering of her heart and the urge that she had felt to kiss Gold was Gracie's doing, or her own, and she's not sure which is worse.

Despite the small smidgen of resentment she still holds towards him, along with her exasperation, Belle likes this place where Gold feels he can ask her to his hotel and actually run lines with her, _help_ her, rather than lie to Frank and blow her off.

She likes that she felt like an equal when he told her if something worked or if it didn't and that he didn't get indignant when she did the same for him.

She likes this..._work_. She likes having this professional level between them where there is no glass ceiling, no baggage, and nothing is holding her back from doing what feels right. So, it would be ridiculous to ruin that, to scrap their hard-earned progress for the tickle of heat she had felt in her belly when she was an inch from his mouth and he had licked his lips, unconsciously or not.

Despite the easy way he seems to be able to get under her skin and the fact that he can put all of this _worry_ in her head, she knows he needs a friend right now. He doesn't need another problem, which is what that feeling of attraction inside of her is.

It is a problem – a _big_ one – and it's not to be dismissed so very easily.

But Belle can use it, can mould it and work it into her performance to fuel Gracie's fire, and it will make her job that much easier, starting from something that is actually _tangible_. She can smooth out any personal problems that stem from it, because a crush is just a crush, and a crush between co-stars is almost a given in their business.

For now, Belle just needs to support her leading man, and a smile crosses her face as an idea comes to mind.

She leans against the arm of the couch and calls out, "Gold!"

He turns from his pacing, stopping by a sun lounger, and meets her gaze, eyebrows lifted in both expectation and surprise. Whatever his thoughts had been, they hadn't been pleasant, and they've left their mark on his face.

"What's the pepperoni pizza like here?" She asks.

Belle can see the immediate change in Gold's expression, his sudden sour mood turning as quickly as it had come into quiet amusement. He tries to hide his returned good humour behind his hand as takes a final draw from the shortened cigarette between his masculine fingers.

"Finest in the world," he tells her on the exhale, and Belle smiles.

* * *

When her driver comes to pick her up hours later, Belle French leaves Rumford Gold to return alone to his bungalow after seeing her off.

He stands between the empty plates and half-finished dishes decorating the brightly lit Great Room, and he wonders how an Aussie with a penchant for picking the toppings off of a pizza and who can't abide his non-use of a napkin could have wormed her way so quickly into his happier thoughts.

He thinks it might have been on the first day of filming, when she told him that he looked tired too.


End file.
